News Updates

Jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis’s new “Concerto in D” for violin is a brainstorm from a genius brain, but it’s a storm that may yet need more taming. The piece was written for Scottish violinist Nicola Benedetti, who performed it with enthusiasm and stunning technique at her Los Angeles Philharmonic debut Thursday night at the Hollywood Bowl, with Cristian Macelaru conducting.
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Every election year is about competing visions of America and what it means to be an American. Political parties this summer are particularly divided between and among themselves. The Hollywood Bowl, however, has offered to help with the vision thing.
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Scottish violinist Nicola Benedetti was 17 when she met American jazz legend Wynton Marsalis. A rising classical star, she was on her own in New York for the first time for a performance at Lincoln Center.
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Wynton Marsalis long ago established his fluency in multiple musical languages, jazz and classical chief among them.
But blues, gospel, spirituals, tango, African chant and other idioms also course through Marsalis’ large works, such as the symphonic-choral “All Rise,” the sanctified “In This House, On This Morning” and the vocal-orchestral epic “Blood on the Fields” (the first jazz composition to win a Pulitzer Prize, in 1997).
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HIGHLAND PARK, Ill. — When jazz musicians venture into the world of classical music, such undertakings often get tagged — sometimes pejoratively — as “crossover” projects. But for renowned trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis, the managing and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, working in the classical realm does not mean crossing over to some foreign stylistic territory but rather returning to familiar musical ground, as should be evident when his Concerto in D (for Violin and Orchestra) receives its American premiere July 12 at the Ravinia Festival by violinist Nicola Benedetti, guest conductor Cristian Măcelaru, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
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Wynton Marsalis, Nicola Benedetti and Cristian Macelaru host a Facebook Live session from backstage at the Ravinia Festival on July 11th. Catch them while they prepare for the U.S. premiere of the Marsalis Violin Concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
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The 2016 CSO residency opens with the American premiere of the first violin concerto by jazz legend Wynton Marsalis, co-commissioned by Ravinia Festival for violinist Nicola Benedetti, who will mark her third Ravinia appearance.
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So what is America’s most prominent and powerful jazzman doing writing a classical violin concerto?
In fact, the Violin Concerto that Wynton Marsalis composed for Scottish violin virtuosa Nicola Benedetti, which will receive its American premiere with her as soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on next Tuesday night at Ravinia, is the latest in a series of works that the multi-talented trumpeter, composer, educator and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center has written for classical symphony orchestra.
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On a day when the leaders of Canada, the United States and Mexico were engaged in high-level talks in Ottawa, a more informal international jazz summit took place in Confederation Park.
Wednesday night on the TD Ottawa Jazz Festival’s main stage, Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra invited members of the Moscow Jazz Orchestra, who have their own festival concert Thursday, to play with them.
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